[An Nahar] The jacket wallah who tried to assassinate Afghanistan's spy chief detonated a bomb hidden in his underwear, the intelligence agency said Friday.

Right about now that jacket wallah is grateful his attempt succeeded. Life after a semi-successful pantibomb attempt isn't worth thinking about.

Asadullah Khalid, who heads the National Directorate of Security (NDS), was targeted by a bomber posing as a Taliban peace envoy in a spy agency guesthouse in the upscale Kabul district of Taimani on Thursday.

Khalid was maimed in the attack and is now being treated at a U.S.-run military hospital outside Kabul where he is in a stable condition, security sources have said.

On Friday, the NDS said that he was "recovering" and in a "satisfactory" condition.

Investigators found that "the organizers of this suicide kaboom... skilfully placed the explosives in the underpants and around the genitals of the suicide attacker," the spy agency said in a statement.

To much information, guys.

This "runs against all Islamic and Afghani principles", it added.

But turban bombs are universally admired for their cleverness.

It is believed to be the first time in Afghanistan that a suicide bomber has carried the explosives in his underpants. The tactic was made notorious on Christmas Day 2009 by an al-Qaeda agent who tried to blow up an American airliner.

Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was caught while trying to detonate the plastic explosives aboard a flight from Amsterdam to the U.S., is serving life imprisonment. His capture led to even stricter searches in some airports, including scanners which show victims in the nude.

The fact that an assassin was able to get so close to one of Afghanistan's most prominent officials had raised questions about whether the visitor was an insider known to Khalid.

But the revelation that the explosives were hidden in his underpants could also suggest that he might not have been thoroughly searched on that part of his body -- an omission in many security searches in Afghanistan.

[An Nahar] Three people were killed and eight maimed in a blast outside a mosque in the Kenyan capital, the Kenyan Red Thingy and police said Friday.

There were "three fatalities" as well as several maimed, some critical, a Red Thingy official said after the "kaboom near a mosque in Eastleigh", a largely ethnic Somali district of Nairobi.

"We were told that three people have died of injuries from the incident," Nairobi police chief Moses Nyakwama told AFP, "There are eight others in hospital, among them is a member of parliament."

The grenade was hurled at worshipers leaving a popular mosque minutes after the end of the evening prayers. A handful of protesters erupted into the streets soon after the blast but were quickly contained by a heavy police presence.

The Friday evening incident follows a roadside kaboomkaboom also in Eastleigh district on Wednesday evening, that killed one person and maimed eight others, as well as a bomb on a bus last month also in Eastleigh that killed nine.

Eyewitnesses say that police and rescue organizations are currently in the area in a security operation and that residents remain locked up in their houses.

"Three ambulances are in the area. Police are patrolling, many residents have locked themselves in their houses," Joe Chaudhry an area resident told AFP via phone.

[Reuters] Prime Minister Mohamed Mursi was expected to press ahead on Saturday with talks on ways to end Egypt's worst crisis since he took office even though the country's main opposition leaders have vowed to stay away.If only one side shows up for the dialogue it's a monologue.
Cairo and other cities have been rocked by violent protests since November 22, when Mursi promulgated a decree awarding himself sweeping powers that put him above the law.

The upheaval in the most populous Arab nation, following the fall of Hosni Mubarak...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... last year, worries the West, in particular the United States, which has given it billions of dollars in military and other aid since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.

Mursi's deputy raised the possibility that a referendum set for December 15 on a new constitution opposed by liberals might be delayed. But the concession only goes part-way towards meeting the demands of the opposition, who also want Mursi to scrap the decree awarding himself wide powers.

If Mursi keeps the power, the constitution is optional...

On Friday, large crowds of protesters surged around the presidential palace, breaking through barbed wire barricades and climbing on tanks guarding the seat of Egypt's first freely elected president, who took office in June.

As the night wore on, tens of thousands of opposition supporters were still at the palace, waving flags and urging Mursi to "Leave, leave".

[An Nahar] Thousands of protesters broke through a barbed-wire perimeter protecting the Cairo palace of President Mohamed Morsi on Friday, as his vice-president hinted at a possible compromise aimed at calming the seething crisis dividing Egypt.

A cordon of soldiers prevented the crowd from nearing the palace's main gate, but elsewhere protesters sprayed graffiti on the outside walls saying "Leave, Morsi" and "Down with the Moslem Brüderbund," the movement from which Morsi hails, Agence La Belle France Presse correspondents at the scene said.

There was no visible violence. But tensions were high after bloody festivities at the same spot on Wednesday between supporters and opponents of Morsi left seven people dead and more than 600 injured.

Several army tanks were stationed in the square and nearby but made no movement against the protesters, some of whom clambered atop them to declare the army was "hand in hand" with them.

That was reminiscent of the popular uprising that ousted long-time president Hosni Mubarak...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... early last year, when tanks stood idle amid massive protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square, as protesters mixed with soldiers.

The crowd also shouted "We want to see the fall of the regime" -- a slogan common during the anti-Mubarak revolt.

The increasingly strident calls for Morsi to step down followed an address on Thursday in which the president dismissed demands he give up sweeping new powers he decreed for himself two weeks ago and postpone a December 15 referendum on a constitution drafted by a panel of Islamist allies.

Late Friday, however, Egypt's vice-president, Mahmoud Mekki, told AFP that Morsi "could accept to delay the referendum" on the draft constitution but only if the opposition guaranteed it would launch no legal challenge to the decision.

Under Egyptian law, a president is compelled to hold a referendum two weeks after formally being delivered its text.

Mekki's suggestion implied Morsi might be seeking a way to de-escalate the crisis.

On Thursday, Morsi had offered to hold talks with the opposition, but the main opposition bloc, the National Salvation Front, rebuffed the offer, accusing Morsi of "dividing Egyptians between his 'supporters of legitimacy'... and his opponents."

The opposition sees Morsi's decree as a brazen power grab, and the draft constitution as an attempt to quash Egypt's secular underpinnings in favor of Islamic aspirations.

Demonstrators on Cairo's streets said they were determined to stop Morsi.

"Before the violence, I just wanted Morsi to repeal his decree and cancel the referendum. But now that blood has been spilt, he has to go," said Sahar al-Shazli, 27, a veil covering her face.

"Morsi won't back down and neither will we," said Sharif Qasem, a demonstrator outside the palace. "Those who are steadfast the longest will win."

But determination flashed just as brightly among those backing the president.

Late Friday, police fired tear gas at hundreds of Islamist protesters, mostly hardline Salafists...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them..., who tried storming the Cairo studios of private Egyptian television channels critical of Morsi's supporters.

Prominent Salafist leader Hazim Abu Ismail had called for the demonstrations on his Twitter and Facebook accounts in order to "cleanse the media" of reporting they see as biased against the Islamists' cause.

At a Cairo funeral on Friday for several of the seven people killed this week and said to be Moslem Brüderbund members, Morsi supporters dismissed the public protests against the president.

"All the people are with us, with the (draft) constitution," said one Brotherhood supporter attending the service in the Al-Azhar mosque.

That unquestioning backing was not shared by Egypt's top Islamic body, which on Thursday called on Morsi to suspend the decree.

The United States and European Union...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... have called for dialogue to resolve the crisis.

And on Friday, U.N. human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... chief Navi Pillay criticized the draft constitution and "the way the process has been short-circuited," saying "people are right to be very concerned."

She highlighted the proposed charter's perceived weaknesses in upholding human rights and gender equality, the primacy of Islamic sharia law in the text and its potential to give the president "excessive power" over the judiciary.

[Dawn] More than 10,000 protesters opposing Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi swarmed the square in front of his Cairo palace on Friday evening, breaking through barbed wire barriers protecting the compound.

A cordon of soldiers prevented the crowd from nearing the palace's main gate, but elsewhere protesters sprayed graffiti on the outside walls, telling Morsi to "Go" and leave power, AFP correspondents at the scene said.

There was no visible violence, but tensions were high after festivities at the same spot on Wednesday between pro- and anti-Morsi supporters left seven people dead and more than 600 injured.

Several army tanks were stationed in the square and nearby but made no movement against the protesters, some of whom clambered atop them to declare the army was "hand in hand" with them.

That was reminiscent of the popular uprising that ousted long-time president Hosni Mubarak...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... early last year, when tanks stood idle amid massive protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square, as protesters mixed with soldiers.

The crowd also shouted "We want to see the fall of the regime", a slogan common during the anti-Mubarak revolt.

The increasingly strident calls for Morsi to step down followed an address on Thursday in which the president dismissed demands he give up sweeping new powers he decreed for himself two weeks ago and postpone a December 15 referendum on a constitution drafted by a panel of Islamic oriented allies.

Leaders of the main opposition group, the National Salvation Front, rebuffed a grudging offer from Morsi to talk with them about the political crisis his decisions have triggered.

Both Morsi's Islamic backers and the largely secular opposition have dug in their heels in the confrontation, raising the prospect of further escalation.

In his speech, Morsi sought to portray elements of the opposition as "thugs" allied to remnants of Mubarak's regime.

The Front shot back, accusing the president of "dividing Egyptians between his 'supporters of legitimacy'... and his opponents."

#2
Several army tanks were stationed in the square and nearby but made no movement against the protesters, some of whom clambered atop them to declare the army was "hand in hand" with them.
To quote the hero of Wonder Years.... "and there you have it"

[Al Ahram] Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi may delay a controversial constitutional referendum, slated for 15 December, if the opposition accepts dialogue without preconditions, Justice Minister Ahmed Mekki said on Friday.

Anti-Morsi demonstrators, who switched their protest hub from the iconic Tahrir Square to the area surrounding the presidential palace in Cairo, are persistently demanding that Morsi call off the referendum.

The president's opponents say the draft constitution, which was written by an Islamist-dominated assembly, disregards the rights of women, workers and Christians.

Egyptian expats are due to cast their yes or no vote on Saturday.

"The president is ready to talk with political figures without any preconditions. He is open to the idea of postponing the referendum to reach consensus over the contentious articles," Mekki was quoted as saying by Al-Ahram Arabic website.

"He is ready for that even if it means the constitution will return to the assembly. Saturday's vote for Egyptian expats may also be suspended if opposition political forces accept dialogue without preconditions."

"The president believes (the opposition's) demands cannot be fulfilled without dialogue," Mekki, a one-time reform judge who played a key role in the anti-Mubarak movement before the January 25, added.

[Al Ahram] 23:40 The Ministry of Interior warned the protests at the presidential palace, held by anti-Morsi demonstrators, and the rally of the president's supporters three miles away could be infiltrated and might spiral "out of control". In a statement issued by its media center, the ministry called on the participants in both congregations to go home "for the sake of the nation."

23:25 The Ministry of Health said 11 people were injured in Friday's protests against the constitutional declaration: three in Cairo at the presidential palace, six at the president's home in Zagazig located in Sharqiya governorate in the eastern Delta, and two in Behaira governorate in the northern Delta.

23:00 Protesters have set up barricades in Marghani Street leading to the presidential palace in the Heliopolis district in Cairo in preparation for a sit-in, according to Al-Ahram Arabic website.

Protesters are distributing blankets to wither the chilly night in the country's capital.

Rumors about attacks from Muslim Brotherhood supporters keep circulating, said Ahram Online's Bel Trew. Some anti-Morsi protesters formed groups to protect the rally at the presidential palace against "possible attacks."

Meanwhile, reinforced vehicles of the Central Security Forces are surrounding the Brotherhood supporters congregating at in Naser City's Raba El-Adawiya Mosque, three miles away from the presidential palace.

Some of the officers deployed near the mosque stressed there is no way for the Brotherhood supporters to head towards the presidential palace.

22:15 Al-Ahram Arabic website reports that hundreds or anti-Morsi demonstrators in the northern coastal city of Alexandria ransacked the governorate's headquarters, expressing anger at the killing of other protesters Thursday at the hands of what they described as "armed militias affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood."

However,those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things... "the political forces who demand the delay of the referendum must provide guarantees that there will not be appeals [against the delay] in courts," the statement said.
Last year's constitutional declaration, which was issued by then-ruling military council in March 2011 after a similar referendum, stipulates that a referendum on draft constitution must be held within 15 days of the date at which the president receives the draft from a constituent assembly.

The controversial draft constitution was handed to president Morsi by the outgoing constituent assembly on 1 December and the president set a referendum on the draft for 15 December.

[Al Ahram] Protesters have set up barricades in Marghani Street leading to the presidential palace in the Heliopolis district in Cairo in preparation for a sit-in, according to Al-Ahram Arabic website.

Protesters are distributing blankets to wither[sic] the chilly night in the country's capital.

Rumors about attacks from Moslem Brüderbund supporters keep circulating, said Ahram Online's Bel Trew. Some anti-Morsi protesters formed groups to protect the rally at the presidential palace against "possible attacks."

Meanwhile,...back at the pond, the radioactive tadpoles grown into frogs. Really big frogs, in fact... reinforced vehicles of the Central Security Forces are surrounding the Brotherhood supporters congregating at in Naser City's Raba El-Adawiya Mosque, three miles away from the presidential palace.

Some of the officers deployed near the mosque stressed there is no way for the Brotherhood supporters to head towards the presidential palace.

[Al Ahram] Hossam Ali Ahmed, secretary-general of the Ghad El-Thawra Party led by 2005 presidential candidate Ayman Nour, announced on his Twitter account that the presidential office has agreed to postpone the expatriate voting processions on the draft constitution from Saturday 8 December to Wednesday 12 December, which was the party's condition before accepting negotiations with President Morsi.

[Al Ahram] In a fresh swipe at opponents, the Moslem Brüderbund said they would not let opposition "derail path to democracy."That word doesn't mean what you think it means...
"The Egyptian people will defend their democratic choice and will not let opposition to derail path to full democracy through intimidation and violence," the group said on its English Twitter feed.

"If opposition is seeking change, only way to do it through ballot box and earning people trust in upcoming elections, so far they've failed miserably."

#3
And in order to defend democracy we had to flagrently ignore it by giving our guy overwhelming powers and then ramming home our own version of how the country will be run. Nice

This time the non MB have the experience of two "sort of " successes. One against Muberak, the other against the military. They will not stop. and the MB - well, they can be rallied on to go into the breach at any time. Looks like a coal for Xmas for all concerned.

Bullshit! The so-called opposition was never and is never going to pull the levers in Egypt. The MoBro Genie is out of the bottle. Deal with it. Besides, those leftist pricks brand of Democracy has nothing to do with Liberty. Trying to be on the right side of history is for saps.

[Bangla Daily Star] Eight more coppers, including an assistant commissioner and an OC, were maimed during attacks on them by Jamaat-Shibir activists at Pirojpur and Rajshahi towns yesterday.

The law enforcers locked awayBook 'im, Mahmoud! 25 activists from both towns in connection with their alleged involvement in the attacks.

Six coppers including the officer-in-charge (OC) of Pirojpur Sadar Police Station were maimed during a clash between Jamaat-Shibir activists and law enforcers in front of a mosque of Sayeedi Foundation on bypass road.

Police and witnesses said around 200 activists of Jamaat-Shibir gathered in front of the mosque after performing their Juma prayers to hold a rally demanding release of Jamaat leader Delwar Hossain Sayeedi...Islamic orator and politician. He was a former Member of Parliament in the National Assembly of Bangladesh from 1996 to 2008, and is one of the most prominent leaders of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami... and other party leaders.

On information, police rushed to the spot and tried to disperse the activists. Jamaat-Shibir men, divided into several groups, swooped on the police with sticks and other sharp weapons.

A wrangle between the activists and police led to a chase and counter chase in the area. Jamaat-Shibir supporters threw brickbats at police, prompting the law enforcers to charge batons, fire four rounds of tear shells and 20 rubber bullets.

A case would be filed against the activists on charge of attacking the law enforcers, said N M Murshid, acting superintendent of police of the district.

In Rajshahi, a police constable was stabbed allegedly by Jamaat-Shibir activists while an assistant commissioner of police came under attack by locals during his attempt to nab the activists at Dharampur early yesterday.

Police arrested 22 activists of Jamaat-Shibir for their alleged involvement in the incidents, reports our staff correspondent in Rajshahi.

Quoting Shariful, police officials said a gang of six to seven people swooped on Shariful while he was going to join his duty as a guard at Bangladesh Betar Transmission Tower at Binodpur around 2:00am.

Nayek Romesh Kumar Ghosh said they dragged Shariful to a roadside tree and stabbed him indiscriminately after knocking him down on the ground.

Hearing Shariful's scream, other coppers rushed to the spot and the attackers fled through the orchards of the Radio tower garden, he added.

Stabbed severely in the legs, the constable was first taken to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital and later shifted to National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in Dhaka for better treatment.

Later AC Hasnat along with a police team went to Binodpur around 4:00am to nab the suspected attackers -- Sabuj and Rajib.

As the police members raided their house, its female members swooped on Hasnat with sharp weapons.

Sabuj and Rajib fled through the bamboo fence of their house when coppers were busy in the tussle with their family members, police said.

Rajib's mother Shahar Banu and aunt Motijan Begum were maimed as police charged baton on them. They were undergoing treatment at RMCH.

RMP Commissioner Moniruzzaman said "It is undoubtedly the work of Jamaat-Shibir activists as the injured police members had no involvement in any local affairs."

"The attempts on their lives were similar to the recent attacks on police by Jamaat-Shibir men," he added.

Sanaul Haque, officer-in-charge of Motihar Police Station, said two cases were filed in connection with the incidents.

Six unidentified individuals and one police agent were found dead in Zacatecas state Thursday afternoon, according to Mexican news reports.

According to a news item posted Thursday on the website of El Sol de Zacatecas, a municipal police patrol found the body of Policia Estatal Acreditable (PEA) agent Juan Ormidio Aguilar Lara in Calera municipality inside a Ferris wheel on El Montecillo ranch.

Aguilar Lara was a police commander who disappeared last Tuesday just after he started his vacation. Aguilar Lara resided in Calera municipality.

Six other unidentified individuals were found in the same area, three men and three women.

In the same area the day before a patrol which included Policia Estatal Preventiva (PEP) and Policia Federal (PF) police detained three suspected criminals, weapons and three vehicles. It unclear in the report if the detainees had anything to do with the disappearance and death of Aguilar Lara.

[An Nahar] German federal prosecutors said Friday they had brought charges against a German-Moroccan national on suspicion of spying for Rabat against opposition members.

The federal prosecutor's office said the 59-year-old suspect identified only as Bagdad A. was believed to have worked as an agent for the Moroccan secret services in Germany from May 2007 to February this year.

"The accused has a broad network of contacts among Moroccans living in Germany," it said in a statement.

"In 2007, he told the Moroccan foreign intelligence service he was willing to use his contacts to provide information about Moroccan opposition members living in Germany."

It said he remained in "constant" contact with his employers until February this year and informed them in particular about demonstrations held by opposition groups.

A front man for the prosecutors said the man was not currently in jug but that the authorities had determined there was little risk of flight as his family lived in Germany.

[Dawn] An kaboomdestroyed Quetta, the capital of restive Balochistan...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... province on Friday evening, injuring at least five people, DawnNews reported.

According to some initial reports by the police, the blast took place at Quetta's Jan Mohammad Road when kaboom planted outside a shop blew up.

Another red-beard bites the dust.A senior al-Qaida official and potential successor to the group's leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed Friday morning in a Predator drone strike, according to reports on jihadi web forums and U.S. officials.

Sheikh Khalid Bin Abdul Rehman Al-Hussainan, aka Abu-Zaid al Kuwaiti, was killed in Pakistan while eating breakfast,Start your day with a good breakfast, I always say.
according to the accounts. The 46-year-old cleric was seen as part of the "very top tier" of al-Qaida's remaining leaders in the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden, according to one expert on the terror group.

"That's a big gap in the leadership," said Kohlmann, who is also a Justice Department consultant. Oh well, I guess this story must be fake, if it's reported by NBC/Justice Dept.
"He was the last senior Al-Qaida leader in the Afghanistan-Pakistan area who was, one, from the Arabian Peninsula and, two, who had serious clerical credentials. Now there is no obvious publicly recognizable candidate left to succeed Zawahiri."

#9
Not much different than dealing with plague. You don't immediately kill the rats because the fleas will jump to other carriers only speeding up the transmission. First you reduce the flea population to a low level, then you kill the rats.

These days, American counterterror policy is even more reliant on taking out individual militants. How exactly those individuals are picked for drone elimination is the matter of intense debate and speculation. The White House reportedly maintains a matrix of the most dangerous militants. Social-network analysis  the science of determining the connections between people  almost certainly plays a role where those militants appear on that matrix.

Kinetic events and various nefarious activities are traced from bomb makers, bomb emplacers, hit men, drug lords, prison escapees, and financiers to cell leaders, and their various networks via signatures analysis, link analysis, and All Source reporting. Sometimes called "social- network analysis". Think of the "Matrix" as a sort of Ancestors.com on steroids and you'll not be far afield. It is a law enforcement or warrant approach vs classic military meeting engagement, ie, search and destroy the enemy.

As bad actors become more and more active in a specific region, their activities are validated and added to their rap sheet or "Matrix". The Matrix is then updated and annotated to reflect desired outcomes relative to the insurgent.

The bad guys or insurgent leaders have various methods to combat network analysis. Some of those methods include; name changes (most have several to include niks); subcontracting events through cut-outs, staying off the cellie or using half a dozen different cellies; disinformation provided by detainees during interrogation; moving to a different province; returning to PAK and going dormant.

#11
"Expert" studies have a frequent tendency to conclude that actions fail to work and may even cause harm on the balance. They tend to especially disparage violent actions as being not only immoral, but also ineffective. If we followed their logic, we would have responded to Pearl Harbor by ignoring it or by making a "proportionate" response of attacking one Japanese military base and we would have refrained from bombing Nazi Germany because bombing them would only have created more Nazis. They also have a problem of picking the right baseline for comparison. Inaction doesn't have to result in stasis, but frquently results in a deterioration that would be the correct baseline for a valid comparison.

#14
If current events are any indication it would appear William T's sexual exploits have been well studied indeed. He was also fond of fine horses. By the time he reached Savannah he was reported to have had a private stable of nearly 70.

[Dawn] A military court of appeal on Friday, by rejecting appeals of convicted ex-army men in the GHQ attack case, maintained the punishments awarded in August last year, DawnNews reported.

The military court in Rawalpindi had sentenced to death a former soldier, Aqeel alias Dr Usman, over an attack in 2009 on the Pakistain Army Headquarters (GHQ) and awarded prison terms to the seven others.

The former soldier of the army's medical corps was given the maximum punishment of death while another retired soldier, Imran Siddiq, was awarded life imprisonment.

Three civilians -- Khaliqur Rehman, Mohammad Usman and Wajid Mehmood -- were given life terms while two others, Mohammad Adnan and Tahir Shafiq (both civilians), got eight and seven years jail sentence respectively.

Aqeel was caught injured during the Oct 10, 2009 raid on GHQ by snuffies while the other serviceman and five civilians were found guilty of abetment.

Eleven soldiers had bit the dust in the attack when 10 heavily armed hard boys, wearing boom jackets, stormed the GHQ, holding off commandos for hours.

[Dawn] Eight more people died and at least four injured on Friday as the wave of violence and killings continued in Bloody Karachi...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous..., DawnNews reported.

Sporadic firing by unknown myrmidons took lives of two persons in Machar Colony and Orangi Town's Sabri Chowk areas. A man, identified as Jahanzeb, was killed in Gulshan-e-Maymar's Jhanjhar Goth.

In Manghopir neighbourhood, another man was bumped off also.

Earlier, three bodies were recovered from a rickshaw in Garden's area. Police reports suggest, the rickshaw was stolen from Nabi Bhaksh locality a day ago and the dear departed were kidnapped before being rubbed out. However,death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate... reports added, all three men were not identified as yet.

Meanwhile,...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth had turned a paler shade of blue. Star-A-Star had struck again... in separate incidents of firing, at least four people were maimed in Clifton, Korangi and Kati Pahari areas.

On the other hand, protests were launched against the killing of Maulana Hassaan Rashid outside the Bloody Karachi Press Club and in New Bloody Karachi's Bilawal Colony. The participants threatened to prolong their protest if the killings of Ulema (holy mans) were not stopped by the authorities.

Moreover, the suspect of Muharram 6 blast in Orangi Town, Attaullah, was presented before the District West Court for identification parade. Two witnesses identified the suspect during the hearing.

It is pertinent to mention that Attaullah was also identified in another court for the blast in Abbas Town area during Muharram.

[Dawn] Around a dozen unlicensed FM radio stations were taken off the air in Swabi district over the last couple of days for spreading religious hatred.

Also, the administration seized equipment used by these radio stations and booked their owners for illegal activity.

The provincial had taken notice of the illegal operations of illegal FM radio stations in Swabi. There followed the issuance of the provincial home and tribal affairs department's directions to the local administration to take them all off the air.According to an official of the home department, the administration has launched a crackdown on illegal FM radio stations in the district.

He said no illegal radio station was found in Mardan district, while around a dozen FM radio stations were run in Swabi district.

The official said the administration had revealed that almost all illegal FM radio stations used to air religious messages and these programmes were mostly of different religious schools of thought.

He added that the administration feared that it might cause unrest in the district and might create law and order situation.

Under the Pakistain Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) Ordinance, 2002, the authority has the exclusive right to grant licences for the establishment and operation of broadcast media.

It is learnt that until now, Pemra has allowed licences to around 89 commercial and 35 non-commercial radio stations.

According to an official, the running of an unauthorised FM radio station is a crime under Section 33 of the Pemra Ordinance and is punishable up to four years imprisonment.

Due to easy availability of the required equipment, it has become easy for an individual to begin such radio stations, which could air programmes in the radius of few kilometres. Also, the equipment is easy to be shifted from one place to another.

The official said these illegal radio stations remained one of the reasons for increase in militancy in parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... and the adjoining tribal areas.

[LA Times] Exiled Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, leader Khaled Meshaal set foot in the Gazoo Strip for the first time Friday, emerging from the Egyptian border with his hand over his heart and telling jubilant supporters that his visit marked a new era in the pursuit of Paleostinian independence.

Though Meshaal has led the Islamist thug group since 2004, traveling to its Gazoo-based home was unthinkable just a month ago because of fear that Israel might assassinate him as it did his two predecessors.

But the Nov. 21 cease-fire agreement that ended an eight-day clash with Israel emboldened Meshaal to make a victory lap through the seaside territory, culminating Saturday with an outdoor celebration to mark the group's 25th anniversary.

[An Nahar] Army units continued their deployment in the northern city of Tripoli...a confusing city, one end of thich is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... on Friday as they requested the residents to cooperate with them in informing them of any suspicious activity in the area.

The Army Command had described the last round of fighting on Thursday night as the worst the city had seen in years.

It added that its units were deploying in the neighborhoods of Jabal Mohsen, Bab al-Tabbaneh, and others that had witnessed festivities.

It is seeking to contain any armed presence in the city and restore calm and stability in Tripoli, added the statement.

But despite the army's measures, festivities and sniper activity renewed as night fell on the northern city.

Ans OTV said "fierce festivities" erupted between the rival districts as state-run National News Agency said "several shells landed in Tripoli's Syria Street and near al-Nasseri Mosque and Souk al-Qameh."

The Army Command revealed that it had raided on Thursday night the resting places of various gunnies involved in the fighting, succeeding in arresting a number of suspects and seizing several weapons and military equipment.

In addition, it said that some army centers were subject to sniper attacks, which maimed seven soldiers and caused material damage to some military vehicles.

The soldiers' injuries are not serious, it stressed.

It urged the residents of Tripoli "to cooperate fully with the army", warning them of the possibility of the gunnies of using them as human shields.

Tripoli had witnessed its fiercest night of fighting in years along the Bab al-Tabbaneh, Qobberh, Jabal Mohsen, Rifa, al-Baqqar, and Mankoubin neighborhoods.

Twelve people were killed and over 75 were maimed in the latest round of festivities that erupted in Tripoli over the weekend in light of news that Lebanese fighters had been killed in an ambush in the Syrian border town of Tall Kalakh on November 30.

The fighters, who mainly hail from the North and were seeking to fight alongside the Syrian opposition, were killed in an ambush by Syrian regime forces.

[An Nahar] A stray bullet fired from inside Syria maimed a Jordanian soldier on the border on Friday, prompting the kingdom's army to respond to the source of fire, an armed forces front man said.

"The border area in Tel Shehab has in the past few hours witnessed heavy fighting... as opposed to the more usual light or desultory fighting... between the Syrian (regime) army and the Free Syrian Army," he said in a statement carried by the state-run Petra news agency.

"This time, however, and in an act of self-defense, the army used a suitable response to the source of fire. The army will not hesitate in the future to take all necessary measures to defend Jordanian territory and border."

[Al Ahram] Syria's army sent reinforcements to a rebel town near Damascus...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... as festivities raged south of the capital Friday, hours after talks on the conflict between the US, Russia and UN ended without a breakthrough.Meanwhile,...back at the wine tasting, Vince was about to start tasting his third quart... UN chief the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... was due to visit Syrian refugees in Turkey before meeting in Ankara with President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, key backers of the revolt against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-AssadLeveler of Latakia...
Inside Syria, activists feared a new ground assault on Damascus suburbs where military reinforcements poured in, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"The army bombed orchards surrounding Daraya where military reinforcements are heading," said the Observatory, citing activists on the ground.

"Moadamiyet al-Sham was also violently pounded and large reinforcements were deployed apparently to attack the town," said the watchdog which gathers information from a network of activists and medics across the country.

Troops bombarded the southern districts of Damascus.

The outskirts of Damascus are at the heart of the fighting where the regime has launched an operation to reclaim territory within eight kilometres (five miles) of the city.

Analysts say the Assad regime wants to ensure it hold on the capital so that it can be in a position to negotiate a solution to the nearly 21-month conflict.

The Observatory said at least 77 people were killed on Thursday across the country, half of them in Damascus and its suburbs.

Amid the unrelenting violence, a 40-minute meeting in Dublin on Thursday between US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton... sometimes described as America's Blond Eminence and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Edward Stettinius, Jr. ..., her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and UN-Arab League...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... peace envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi ended with with "no sensational decisions".

Brahimi said all three agreed the situation was "very, very, very bad" in Syria, amid growing concern the conflict may take a gruesome new turn and see the regime unleash chemical weapons.

The three discussed "how we can work out hopefully a process that will get Syria back from the brink," said Brahimi.

A US State Department official said it was "a constructive discussion" and that the "next step will be a meeting in the next few days between special envoy Brahimi and bigwigs from the United States and Russia to discuss the specifics of taking this work forward".

Clinton told news hounds shortly before the talks: "We have been trying hard to work with Russia to stop the bloodshed in Syria and start a political transition toward a post-Assad Syrian future".

The three-way talks took place on the sidelines of a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

It is likely the United States will move towards recognising the opposition National Coalition, set up in Qatar early last month, as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people at the meeting.

La Belle France last month became the first Western nation to do so.

The coalition suffered its first major setback on November 19, when Syria's jihadist Al-Nusra Front announced its refusal to recognise it.

Unknown before the start of the popular uprising in Syria in March 2011, Al-Nusra has grabbed credit for the majority of suicide kabooms that have rocked the country this year.

On Thursday, the US State Department expressed concern...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... over the rising influence of fundamentalist groups in Syria, including Al-Nusra, which is said to have ties to Al-Qaeda.

"Although they make up a relatively small part of the opposition to Assad, we know that these groups, Al-Qaeda and their ilk, try to take advantage of exactly the kind of environment that Assad has fostered over the last year or so," front man Mark Toner said.

A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.